Bug Description

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

The latest pulseaudio_0.9.16~test4-0ubuntu4 in karmic is ramping the volume up way too high on my sblive! 5.1. The previous version was perfect, but now it's seems to moving the mixers around illogically and causing the the pcm volume to go straight to 80% even when the pa volume is only at 5%. This is much loud.

I don't know why things were changed from the last version, it was working great yesterday, now I can't even listen with my headphones without causing hearing damage.

I had similar problems, at the moment it seems to work.
BUT, when I change Output from Speaker to HDMI or otherwise, sound controls jump to zero. If I enhance volume it immediately jumps back to zero -> unusable.

Hmm... I've made some observations on the volume-control's behaviour by watching alsamixer:
At mute (0% system volume), Master is 0%, PCM is 0%, and Surround is 0%.
System volume goes above 0%, PCM goes straight to 75% and than the Surround Slider.
System volume goes above 10%, Surround is at 100% and than the Master slider starts increasing.
System volume goes above 60%, Master is at 100% and than the PCM slider starts increasing.

Now, I have couple issues with this:
Why does PCM go straight to 75%, shouldn't it ease up there slowly right after mute?
Why is only the Surround slider moving between 0-10%. It doesn't have any affect on normal volume control. In fact, I think it's only used when the digital 5.1 audio is being used, which is not a normal use case.

Both PCM and surround should be going up gradually throughtout the entire volume control process, not just jumping around illogically and annoyingly.

Okay, I've determined that the Surround slider controls the volume of the rear speaker port, while Master only control the front. It seems that Surround should move identical to Master, but instead, it's moving to highest volume at only 10%. Just wrong.

Karmic alpha 4
I'm finding the same as Taylor. I have a Dell Precision M90 laptop with an LFE channel (sub-woofer). Watching alsamixer, I see that PCM goes up first, followed by LFE, followed by Master. I won't allow anything else. Using the volume hotkeys gives the same results. This means my sub-woofer is at full volume before the main speakers start to do anything.

A fresh install of Karmic alpha 3 shows all the channels working independently in alsamixer. So there has been an update since then that has broken it.

i'm having issues with pulseaudio too. I own a laptop Dell 9400 inspiron. It has a sub-woofer and it is controlled by LFE, master is the front speakers and pcm was typically the real control, so i only had to adjust one volume bar. With this new approach in 9.10 alpha 4 everything is a big mess!

it's kind of cool, because know each application has independent volume control. but it is harder to choose the volume control from the sound card. i believe this is a bug, or maybe a misconception of how pulseaudio should be integrated. there is no way the user can choose which volume bar has the control. Hope that this solved pretty soon.

Is there any way i can provide you more information, just let me know.

I've installed yesterday karmic koala alpha 4 in my inspiron 9400 (same as #7) and the audio isn't working correctly.
The behaviour is the same of #6.
The volume is too high. If I try to reduce it silence...

In pulseaudio volume controller the harware device is setted to analog stereo output (digital stereo duplex doesn't reproduce any sound).
If I launch from shell the alsamixer, i see that my sigmatel has a PCM, Master and LFE and that PCM is setted to 100%, LFE also and Master is about 15%. If I try to reduce one of this volume I see that they are related in the same order of phenest (first PCM, then LFE and only when they are at 100% the Master start to increase but obviously the volume is now too high and disturbed).

Similar problem - my audio doesn't start playing until 30% (in any sound app) and 50% in Flash under Firefox. From there it scales to 100%, but over a smaller interval so it's very hard to finely control it, not to mention being frustrating to play at low levels.

I have a laptop with only stereo out and the the pcm volume jumps straight to 74% right away. The master catches up when the volume slider is only at around 20% so 74% of max volume is compressed into only 20% of the volume slider.

I should mention that in my case (Dell Inspiron 9400 with Intel 82801G (Ich7) HDA (rev 01)) the volume (especially of LFE) can be controlled seperatly again so I can set the same values to master, pcm and lfe manually. That's better than nothing.

But if I try to control the volume via laptop-keys or gnome-volume-control, the problem still exists.

Okay, the latest pulseaudio in the ubunu-audio-dev ppa works a little better, but I had to change the gconf app/gnome_settings_daemon/volume step to 1 to have decent control over volume, as the highest I'd want my headphones with this volume scheme is about 30%.

The only remaining issue is that it still maxes surround early on, when it should follow the same movement master does with my soundcard.

I have a "fix" based on someone else's idea:
Open /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf and change the LFE and Master sections so 'volume = ignore'. Then open alsamixer in a terminal, and set Master and LFE to 100%. You should now find that the volume hotkeys now control just PCM.

The fix by phenest also works for me (Dell Inspiron E1705), however, I must re-do it every time I reboot the computer. The speakers blast loud as possible when logging into Gnome. The headphone jack seems to work properly.

I'm not sure what the purpose of these logs are. I mean, everyone knows what the problem is: the alsa mixer tracks are increasing asynchronously instead of the previous approach which was to select what tracks you want the volume to control, thus having a selection of tracks moving synchronously (or one track only). This is a bug as the current method has undesirable effects. Put simply (and I'm sure all here will agree), can we have the old method as found in Jaunty so the user can decide?

The previous approach is non-intuitive for many people. Please google
for flat volume and see how other operating systems approach the
issue.

Also, you're incorrect that having overdriven audio is a PulseAudio
problem. It's both a hardware bug (broken hardware!) and a linux bug
(not exposing correct dB information!). It needs to be fixed
everywhere, but hardware is much hardware to fix after-the-fact...

I have the same problem as realmrealm, but only with headphones in. I have an "82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller" (according to lshw). I'll try to get a log for you in the next few days.

Having the same problem here. Mine is a Gateway MT3707 updated to Karmic from Jaunty. Also, after replacing "merge" with "ignore" in analog-output.conf there's a nasty clicking sound instead of the expected sound in the first two steps. For example, starting as muted I begin playing an MP3, then step up the sound once and I hear some clicking. Step up again and the clicking gets worse. Step up again and the clicking disappears and the music finally starts coming through. Had to undo changes to analog-output.conf because of that.

Also, reviewing the other open bugs for pulseaudio, I would candidate this to be prioritised as "high" and not "medium". It actually makes sound totally unusable... who decide about priorities indeed!?

@mac.ryan Please note that if there is an easily applicable
workaround, the Importance of a bug tends *not* to be any more
critical than High. Also, with this specific symptom, the bug is in
*linux* not pulseaudio.

@Daniel T Chen - Will try the latest suggestions posted in the thread tomorrow, but so far the "easily applicable workaround" did not work out for me. However my comment was not coming out of frustration (for the moment I am happy sticking with headphones) but out of love for ubuntu! :)

As an ubuntu enthusiast and evangelist - indeed - I still think that a bug that makes sound unusable with standard hardware installed on mainstream computers (Dell is #1 computer vendor in the world) would call for immediate action and a priority of *at least* "high". This is totally a show-stopper for somebody new to ubuntu, inviting somebody to try out ubuntu under these conditions would be like inviting him to learn to skydive promising that the parachute will be delivered to him (probably) sometimes mid-air...

Honestly: we are not speaking of the flickering of a toolbar icon in an application for fractal computation in reverse polish notation under an obscure legacy graphic toolkit ported from solaris. We are speaking of the possibility to watch a video on youtube or BBC, listen to a CD, watch a movie, etc... :(

Same here on fresh 9.10 install on Dell Inspiron 9400. (I assume attaching another verbose log wouldn't make a difference)

I love Ubuntu and honestly hope something more than the typical finger pointing ("the bug is in *linux* not pulseaudio") will be done *soon*. How many average users would be capable of googling the problem, finding this bug report, reading through 40+ posts and pick the workaround, and actually do terminal stuff to apply the "easily applicable workaround"!?

@wolfie2x I agree that it's a problem that needs to be fixed [in
linux]. For what it's worth, I have blogged about it[0] and linked to
it in ubuntuforums[1]. I expect that some people will be quite
frustrated and give up, and obviously that's why it needs to be fixed
[in linux].

Patches are welcome. I am not employed to work on Ubuntu, so every
minute where someone's contributions can be merged is a win for
everyone.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300, and for me to get the "merge-ignore" fix to work, I had to modify the "analog-output-lfe-on-mono.conf" file instead of the ones mentioned here. So if you have a "multimedia" laptop that uses the "Master-Mono" channel for the subwoofer, give it a try.

Daniel, that fix worked for me as well. Is there a way to make the volume keys change PCM as opposed to master? I know this is the old behavior, but it's very useful for keeping the sound levels the same for my laptop between my laptop speakers, headphones, and external speakers. Thank you.

@mac.ryan
I have a DELL XPS M1710 as well. I didn't try Daniel T Chen fix, but #17 (master and LFE to ignore, then set set them to 100% in alsamixer , then volume will be controled through PCE) solved part of the problem, i can now controll the volume with the front keys and it's not blowing the speakers on startup. At ~15% though it still goes to 0 with some weird noises.

@mac.ryan
First of all, ignore_dB=1 *isn't* a fix. This is hardware issue that
can be worked around in linux or pulseaudio, but the proper place to
do it is in linux -- the sound driver.

Second, ignore_dB=1 is a rather poor universal workaround. This is the
problem with bug reports: people see a comment and assume it applies
to everyone's hardware. Wrong. In your specific case, you want to use
the control parameter, which is passed to module-alsa-sink and
module-alsa-source in /etc/pulse/default.pa (or ~/.pulse/default.pa),
e.g.,

load-module module-alsa-sink control=PCM

At that point, PA only controls your PCM mixer control and ignores the
others. That's very different from ignore_dB=1, which simply tells PA
to ignore what linux tells it for the hardware volume range but
continues to adjust all the mixer controls.

Tried the replacing merge with ignore trick in alsa conf, didn't seem to help (well, maybe there was a slight variation in volume, could be my imagination).

ignore_dB=1 in pa didn't help either.

attempting control=PCM had interesting effect - it seemed volume adjusted more correctly, but it kind of skipped and stuttered as I adjusted it, and the application I was using (mplayer) hung completely for a while, then skipped a bit, so I removed it.

FWIW, playing around in alsamixer, seems that, at least when using PA, master does nothing. PCM or "Speaker 3" do seem to control volume correctly.

Tried the replacing merge with ignore trick in alsa conf, didn't seem to
help (well, maybe there was a slight variation in volume, could be my
imagination).

ignore_dB=1 in pa didn't help either.

attempting control=PCM had interesting effect - it seemed volume
adjusted more correctly, but it kind of skipped and stuttered as I
adjusted it, and the application I was using (mplayer) hung completely
for a while, then skipped a bit, so I removed it.

FWIW, playing around in alsamixer, seems that, at least when using PA,
master does nothing. PCM or "Speaker 3" do seem to control volume correctly.

I wonder why no more comments have been posted for over two weeks now. As far as I am concerned, the problem is still in place, and none of the workarounds proposed above (using a pure PCM-control; passing ignore_dB=yes to the module(s)) have worked out for me.

Anyway, I found another workaround which up to now works good for me. A more comprehensive description can be found here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9363330&postcount=30). In summary:
1. Edit /etc/pulse/default.pa
2. In there, uncomment any autodetection modules (modules module-udev-detect, module-hal-detect, module-detect)
3. Add a line "load-module module-alsa-sink device=surround40:0". Replace "surround40:0" with whatever matches your configuration.
4. Open alsamixer and adjust the hardware controls to match the maximum output volume desired by you.
5. Restart pulseaudio via running "killall pulseaudio" within a terminal.

==> PulseAudio now does the volume control in software now, in a way the user would expect, and leaves the hardware controls alone, i.e., as you adjusted them.

I hope this does help some of you. I would be glad to get some feedback.

BTW: Please nobody get me wrong. PA's idea of simplifying controls is absolutely right. As soon as the original issue is fixed, I recommend to immediately switch back to PA controlling the hardware volume.

I don't know if others are seeing slightly different symptoms, or have misinterpreted. For me, the problem is simply:

* surround and LFE seem to be equivalent, at least in that they both adjust up the sub-woofer volume.
* the LFE and Surround volume levels are maximised by default
* If I set these to lower levels in alsamixer, then everything sounds great. However, adjusting the volume control in gnome's panel immediately ramps these right up to 100% again, as if someone made the assumption that you'd always want pumping basslines, even if you turn the overall volume down.

Setting a sane surround and LFE volume by default, saving volume levels across reboots, and setting surround and LFE to volume = ignore in the aforementioned config file is all I really need to fix this. Slightly better would be for the gnome volume to move LFE and surround proportionally to the main volume. Ideal would be for ALSA to present these levels relative to the main volume, rather than as absolute values.

Also, some have suggested that gnome's volume control should adjust the PCM volume. I think that would be broken. My expectation of the gnome volume control, when only one slider is presented, is that it adjusts the master volume, and (although it fails in this), there would be an "advanced" option where individual sliders/toggles/etc. could be accessed.

I just realised that Daniel T. Chen tagged this Won't fix?! Frankly, that's INSANE. Just because there's a way to fix it manually, it does not mean that ubuntu should not work to fix it by default. The current behavior is ILLOGICAL, UNEXPECTED, INTERFERING, and ANNOYING.

This is the most annoying bug in ubuntu for me right now, which means I have to go back to text-based alsamixer just to watch videos with reasonable volume levels. I have to LEAVE it open, too, because the stupid default GUI controls reset everything against my explicit settings.

This is a BIG usability problem, which many people above are also experiencing. If I demo'd Ubuntu to a new potential user, thsi would probably be the kind of flaw that would make them think Ubuntu was too buggy to use. Please take it seriously and get it sorted out. Frankly it's embarrassing that Ubuntu hasn't already released an update to fix this.

I can't contribute anything to this in the way of help, but I also have this issue with my headphones - I can provide any hardware and bug information you need to sort this out.
I've just upgraded to Oneiric on my mum's computer, and now we're having this volume problem with the headphones (possibly with the main speaker output as well, although I can't test this right now), rendering her headphones totally unusable.

As with several other people who have commented on here, I can get perfect volume with the alsamixer control, but when I change the volume with the volume keys (or through the pulseaudio mixer), the volume levels go all over the place. In fact, watching them change in alsamixer is really weird - none of the changes seem to make sense.